


pressure rocks you like a hurricane

by callabang



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Headaches & Migraines, M/M, Magical Realism, Philadelphia Flyers, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22128253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callabang/pseuds/callabang
Summary: When Nolan wakes up, the blackout curtains are drawn, everything muscle north of his ribs is tense and aching, and his bed is hovering three feet off the ground.
Relationships: Travis Konecny/Nolan Patrick
Comments: 37
Kudos: 274





	pressure rocks you like a hurricane

**Author's Note:**

  * For [manybumblebees](https://archiveofourown.org/users/manybumblebees/gifts).

> It feels weird to call this a Christmas fic because 1) I didn't post it in time for Christmas and 2) it's not about Christmas. Therefore please just consider this fic a token of my affection which also might hurt your feelings.
> 
> Title from "Miracle" from Caravan Palace. Many thanks to Kim for the beta.

When Nolan wakes up, the blackout curtains are drawn, every muscle north of his ribs is tense and aching, and his bed is hovering three feet off the ground.

“Holy  _ fuck, _ ” he says — okay, yells — and then the bed drops back down with an earth-shaking crash and the clear sound of something important breaking.

...

Nolan got tested for magic when he started school, just like everyone else, and again when he was drafted, and both times he registered right around the thirty-fifth percentile. Low-level magic, enough to ping the sensors and unknot his skate laces hands-free, but not much stronger than that. Nothing like Ryanne, who’s pretty much the most magical person he’s ever met, or even Raff, who Nolan is pretty sure was responsible for the time the air in the player’s lounge briefly stopped carrying sound in his rookie year. He’s right about average, basically, which means he’s definitely not powerful enough for… this.

That thought lingers, even as Nolan brushes the whole thing off as a freak accident. It’s probably not, like, completely unheard of for people to get weird surges of magic, and anyway it’s not like he uses his all that much. Maybe it built up, or something.

That line of thinking lasts him about a week, when he gets another migraine — at least Nolan knows strong smells are a trigger now, thanks to Kevin and his fucking cologne — and wakes up to the entire room covered in a gentle dusting of snow. 

At least he doesn’t have to replace his bed frame this time, even if the carpet is going to be wet for days.

Last year, he would have kept this kind of shit to himself and hoped it went away on its own, but now, several months into struggling to figure out some kind of sustainable treatment for his migraines, he knows better. Two times could be a coincidence, but, like. It probably isn’t. 

His doctor doesn’t sound worried when he calls, because she’s a professional, but she does tell him to come in for some tests, which means this might be a problem. 

Fuck.

The team left for a six-day road trip last night, so he drives himself; it isn’t a big deal except that he’s tired and sore all over and trying not to think about what spontaneous outbursts of magic might mean for his hockey. Or, y’know, his head.

At first the tests are nothing new — his doctor shines a light in his eyes, orders a CT scan, asks him ten thousand questions. Then she makes him go through magic testing again, which ends up being pointless, because the results are basically the same as they’ve always been: 35th percentile, low-level magic, entirely benign. 

She spends a long time writing something down in his chart. Nolan wants to go home, and also for the fluorescent lights to stop buzzing. After about ten years she finally looks up from her stupid clipboard.

“There’s no way to be certain at this stage, but symptoms like this aren’t unheard of. For now I’m going to consider these incidents a result of prolonged stress on your body. I’ll let you know about the results from the CT scan, but in the meantime I want you to continue taking it easy and recording these events as they occur. If they continue we may have you come in at some point for an overnight observation. Do you have anything else you’d like to discuss?”

Nolan shakes his head mutely and books it to the car.

There’s a lot of bad parts about the whole brain-trying-to-kill-him thing. He can’t play hockey, he can’t drink, he can’t really hang out with the team. Weird magical outbursts aren’t even that big a deal, in the grand scheme of things. 

Still kind of fucked up, feeling so out of control.

…

It doesn’t really get better. Nolan goes five more days without a migraine, then gets one so bad he’s out of it for almost a full twenty-four hours. When he finally emerges from his bedroom, bleary and nauseous, the couch has changed colors. It uses to be a silvery grey; now it’s a bright, forest green. 

Nolan looks at the couch. At least it still kind of matches the living room.

He’s dozing on the new green couch when Kevin comes home, legs tangled in a throw blanket and the house dark. He wakes up when Kevin flicks on the standing lamp in the corner.

“Hey, how’s it going?” Kevin says, voice a little soft. He always tries to be careful in case Nolan is having a bad day. Sometimes it pisses him off, but he feels a little less prickly now that he’s eaten something and taken a nap, so today it’s okay.

“Fine,” he answers with a shrug, which Kevin takes as permission to fling himself down onto the sectional. “How was the trip?” 

“Lost one, went to overtime and won the second. Oh, TK said he wants to come over if you’re feeling okay.” 

Nolan lets his head tip back against the arm rest. “You can tell him it’s fine.”

“Tell him yourself,” Kevin says, but he thumbs open his phone anyway. “I’ll make him bring dinner.”

“Cool,” Nolan says, closing his eyes. It’s quiet for a minute or two, but comfortable. Kevin is a pretty comfortable guy. 

“Nolan,” Kevin says. Nolan grunts. “Is this...a new couch?”

…

When TK arrives, they eat the takeout at the island and then Kevin goes to do… well, something else. Kevin things. He’s good at giving Nolan space.

“How ya doing, bud?” TK asks. He’s drumming his fingers on his thigh, because god forbid he ever stops moving. Nolan shrugs. He’s been doing a lot of that lately.

“The same, I guess,” he says. He hasn’t told anyone but his doctors about the magic shit, yet. He might have to tell the trainers at some point, if his doctor tells him to. In general he doesn’t really like to share too many of the specifics with the guys. Like, when he sees them he wants it to be like normal, and maybe it wouldn’t be if they knew all the gory details. 

It would probably be safe to tell TK about it. He knows the most already, mostly thanks to his insane stubbornness and complete disregard for Nolan’s privacy. Hell, TK would probably get it — he’s even less magical than Nolan, just strong enough for some minor luck charms and that’s about it, and so he’d understand why this whole thing is so unnerving. And TK is good at treating him the same. 

It’s just, well. Nolan is already way more wigged out by this than he’d like to admit. Like, it’s not like this is all that debilitating, comparatively. It’s just new.

…

Over the next few weeks, TK definitely notices that something is up. Nolan only has a few more migraines in that time, and luckily each time the resulting magical outburst wasn’t too disruptive. He just cleans up the broken glass from the mirror and lets Kevin think all the food in their fridge tasting like bananas was some sort of weird prank, and he can kind of get away with ignoring it. 

Sure, he bites at his nails a little more than he did before this whole thing started, and occasionally zones out thinking about what’s gonna happen if he doesn’t get it under control. But for the most part he’s — well, not dealing with it exactly, but definitely repressing it to the best of his ability. 

“Patty?” TK says, surprisingly tentatively given his whole personality, where he’s sitting next to Nolan on the couch while they watch some dumb movie. Nolan isn’t drinking and TK isn’t either, maybe in solidarity. Nolan might have zoned out about it for a little longer than he meant to. “You good?” 

TK has asked that a few times over the last few weeks. TK, for all his bullshit, is also really fucking perceptive, and also probably knows Nolan better than anyone except, like, his mom. Even if Nolan is reasonably sure TK has no idea about the magic, he probably knows something is bothering him. Emotional intelligent asshole.

“I’m good,” Nolan says, settling more firmly into the couch. He’ll tell TK soon. Probably.

...

He doesn’t tell TK all that soon, but it ends up being a moot point because a few weeks later he’s at TK’s place with a bunch of the team, having a video game night that he knows from the beginning is a bad idea. He can feel the pressure starting behind his eyes when he walks in and he knows it’s stupid, but he doesn’t make Kevin drive him home.

He’s just sick of not being able to do what he wants. 

So he sits on the couch next to TK, not playing or even really looking at the television screen, just taking one deep breath at a time until his vision starts to go and he can hardly think over the nauseating pain in his head. He’s vaguely aware of TK kicking the guys out, him and Kevin dragging Nolan into the guest bedroom, but it feels tiny and far away compared to the immediate pains in his body. For several hours he lays there and tries not to throw up, and then finally he falls asleep.

He wakes up, disoriented, in the middle of a windstorm. The curtains are whipping frantically; as he’s watching, one of them is torn off the curtain rod from the force of the wind and flutters wildly around the room. The chair in the corner keeps clattering against the wall, and half the pictures have been ripped from the shelves, and the lamp on the bedside table tips and shatters against the hardwood floor. Nolan struggles to sitting, tangled in the sheets and more than a little panicked. Is this him? 

The door opens and TK charges inside and is almost immediately knocked back against the door frame. He’s shouting, but Nolan can barely hear him over the rushing of the wind.

“Patty, you gotta stop it! You gotta calm down!” TK yells, but Nolan can’t. His chest heaves and he scrambles up to the headboard, but then another frame explodes into a shower of glass and he really, really can’t.

TK tries to pick his way across the room; his clothes thrash crazily in the windstorm, his whipping hair probably stinging his face. A gust slams him against the dresser and even if Nolan can’t hear the thud he can tell that it knocks the wind out of him, from the way his face goes tight in a grimace of pain. Bracing on the dresser, he pushes himself fully upright.

“Patty!” he yells again, and Nolan can’t find it in him to unclench his hands from the bedspread. He feels — shell-shocked, almost. Outside of his body. He’s scared and confused and he’s never had this much magic before, and he doesn’t know how to stop it. 

TK is still being buffeted against the dresser. He’s trying to get closer but the wind is strong. Nolan swallows, steels himself. Tries to get his head in order, for once, to imagine that he’s a normal person with a normal brain who can control themselves and their magic and their stupid fucking body. For a long moment, nothing happens. Then, for a split second, the wind dies down, just enough for TK to stagger to him. Nolan has to reach out for him, grip his hand so TK can pull himself up into the relative calm of the bed.

“Patty—” he starts, but then abandons that sentence in favor of kneeling over Nolan’s legs, still tangled in the duvet, and pulling him into his chest.

Nolan becomes aware that he’s shaking, a fine tremor all over. 

Maybe later he’ll care about what it looks like, to bury his face in TK’s chest and wrap his arms around his waist, just taking strangled breaths until he feels less out of control. But for now he just does it, lets TK rub his back and whisper to him until the wind dies down. 

It takes a long time. 

Even when the room is calm, neither Nolan nor TK pulls back. 

“Are you—” Nolan says into TK’s chest. “Are you okay?”

“Jesus, man, I should be asking you that,” TK says. “I’ve never seen anything like that, holy shit.”

It feels easier to say when TK is wrapped all around him, and also when Nolan can’t see his face. “It’s been— it’s been going on for a few months now. When my migraines are bad. Magical outbursts.”

TK makes a sound, a sort of half-gasp. “Are they all like that?”

“No,” Nolan answers. Thank god. “Mostly they’re, like, harmless. This one was—” and then his voice goes out a little bit but he can feel TK nodding against the top of his head.

“Bad,” he fills in, and Nolan nods. 

TK pets his hair a little bit, and then, very gently, tugs Nolan’s head back so he can see his face. Nolan lets him do it. 

“Are you okay?” 

Nolan shrugs a little. 

“It’s— it feels different. The magic. Not like the other symptoms, y’know?”

“Yeah,” TK says, “or, well, no, but Jesus, Patty. I can imagine.” 

“I just,” Nolan starts, and he doesn’t know what he’s going to say until he says it. “I just want to feel like myself again.” 

“I know, buddy,” TK says, and folds Nolan back up into his arms. “We’ll figure it out, okay?”

“We might not,” Nolan says, because that’s really the crux of it.

“We will,” TK says, in that familiar stubborn way of his. The way that means he’s coming over whether Nolan likes it or not, that means they’re winning the game if he has to square up with some enforcer to make it happen. “Got it?”

Nolan huffs a laugh. It’s small but TK will probably still count it. “Fine.”

“Damn right,” TK says, and finally pulls back completely. “We’re gonna have to clean up my guest room first though.”

Nolan eyes the damage. There’s a lot.

“Wait,” TK says, and Nolan stops, legs over the side of the bed. “There’s glass. Let me clean it up first.”

“Just get me some shoes, and I’ll do it. It’s my fault, anyway.”

“Patty,” TK says. “Let me. Okay?”

Nolan swallows. “Okay.” 

And with a surprisingly serious nod, TK goes to get a dustpan.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/callabang_)!


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